1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to systems that employ machine-readable labels to store data and deliver them to readers when scanned. Examples include one- and two-dimensional bar-codes, memory buttons, smart cards, radio-frequency identifier (RFID) tags, smart cards, magnetic stripes, micro-chip transponders, etc.
2. Background
Various devices for encoding data currently exist and are under development. These take many different forms, from optical devices such as two-dimensional bar-codes to radio devices such as transponders. These devices generally permit objects to be tagged or labeled to permit machines to read data associated with the object. One-dimensional bar-codes have been used widely for this purpose, but they are limited in terms of how much information they can store. For example, they can identify classes of objects, but not individual objects.
A recent entrant to this field, radio-frequency identifier (RFID) tags, delivers information by radio signals to a reader just as a transponder does. One of the attractions of RFID devices is their potential to carry a large quantity of information. This is in contrast to conventional bar codes whose data capacity is much more limited. Another alternative to conventional bar-codes are two-dimensional bar codes. These are two-dimensional symbols that are capable of encoding much more data than a conventional bar-code. Another encoding device is the iButton(copyright), a small token that stores information that can be read by a reader that makes electrical contact with the iButton(copyright). Still other devices for storing information include printed and non-printed (e.g., etched) machine readable symbols (e.g., using a pattern recognition process) and digital watermarks.
Commercial applications of RFID technology are expected to be highly successful. Supply chain management is one of the biggest. Plans are for manufacturers to register each product""s serial number in a database that could be accessed during the product""s journey through the supply chain. By keeping the data on a network resource such as a server, a service provider could enable stores or warehouses to use a portable scanner to check the history of the product. Retailers thus could check for authenticity or theft, as well as monitor out-of-stock and out-of-demand trends. RFID tags may be programmable and may also include sensors that can record, right in the tag, various environmental factors such as the amount of time a crate of fruit was held at a given temperature.
An obvious model for a future consumer market for RFID tags is the present consumer market for bar-code readers. While bar-code readers have been widely adopted by commercial and industrial users, so far, attempts by manufacturers and vendors to develop consumer markets have met with very limited success. Some examples of consumer applications, current and future, are discussed below.
One example of a bar-code reader product aimed at consumers is the Cue Cat(copyright), a reader designed to be installed on a computer and used to read bar-codes printed in catalogues, magazine advertisements, and product labels. When a user scans a bar-code, the code is automatically conveyed through the Internet to a server that points the user""s browser to a web site for that particular bar-code. The user is saved the trouble of typing in a web address, which could conceivably be a long one if every product had its own web address, but the benefit is not much greater than that. Also, web addresses can be generated for existing products (like a year-old can of peaches in the cupboard) without the user having to look one up (such as by searching with a search engine). If the maintainer of the Cue Cat(copyright) service fails to provide a link for a product, users can suggest a web address. Another similar proposed application is bar-codes on coupons that take the user to a xe2x80x98bonus couponxe2x80x99 section on a web site.
Another proposed application is recipe books with bar-codes that a user can scan and automatically generate a shopping list for the grocery store. The user chooses what to purchase by scanning bar-codes on labels of products at home. From this, a service generates a shopping list to take to the store and use as a dietary guide. Using a cordless barcode scanner the user scans barcodes on boxes or wrappers of grocery items to add them to the user""s shopping list. The scanner is synched to a computer before shopping, and by means of an Internet connection, the personalized shopping list is generated and printed out. The shopping list includes healthy suggestions for the items on the list that are identified as similar to what was originally scanned, but more consistent with the user""s specified dietary goals. Categories such as less fat, less sodium, fewer calories or other options are provided for. The list is broken down into two columns, one containing suggested choices and one with the items originally scanned. An explanation of why this food item is better is provided for each item. An indication is also provided for how close the original item is to the system""s best choice for the class of product. A recipe icon next to some items cues the user to click on links for recipes that use the items on the shopping list and conform to the nutritional profile. For grocers that subscribe to a service, coupon offers can be entered on the shopping list and even downloaded to the user""s shopper""s loyalty card file.
Portable readers are used, or proposed to be used, in various other applications. For example, a consumer can maintain an inventory of bar-coded valuables, such as bicycles, camcorders, cars, etc. Another application allows users to scan items at participating retailers and build a xe2x80x9cwish listxe2x80x9d that they can post to a personalized web page. The list can be organized and emailed to others for gift-related occasions. Shoppers register at a mall kiosk, set up a password, and check out a scanner. Shoppers then build their xe2x80x9cwish listxe2x80x9d by simply scanning bar codes of items. The data is then downloaded to the kiosk when the scanner is returned and the wish list is posted to the web site. Yet another application, which is very similar to the Cue Cat(copyright) is the idea of placing a bar-code on a movie or sporting event ticket stub. The bar-code, in Cue Cat(copyright)-fashion, brings the user to a web-site automatically, allowing the user to purchase products relating to the event, such as sports memorabilia or movie sound-tracks. Yet another, offered by AirClic(copyright), uses bar-codes attached to print articles to bring the user to a web site giving access to updated information, purchase opportunities, or other web features relating to the article. The technology is envisioned as being incorporated in handy appliances such as a cell phone, so the user does not need to be near a computer to use it.
The above examples illustrate various attempts to find consumer applications for their products. Most of these are one-off (specialized) ideas and confer little benefit over traditional ways of accomplishing their respective tasks. The wish list application is highly specialized, as are the grocery shopping list application and the home inventory application. With bar-codes being as pervasive as they are, it is surprising that nobody has come up with truly useful ways of using them, at least for consumers. As discussed above, one component of a break-through may be to increase the amount of data that can be stored on bar-code or other types of data storage vehicle. While this, by itself, will not make xe2x80x9ckiller applicationsxe2x80x9d roll off the tops of designers"" heads, many benefits arise in connection with the increased data capacity of RFID tags and other technologies for storing larger quantities of data than traditional bar-codes.
Unlike bar-codes, which can encode only enough data to correlate a small amount of information, some machine-readable label (MRL) devices can store enough information to accomplish some very interesting things. For example, if attached to a product, it can uniquely identify that particular product, which could be tied in a central database to its date of manufacture, the shipment vessel it was conveyed in, its date of shipment, the retailer to whom it was shipped, to whom it was sold, how it was manufactured, when, etc. Also, some MRL devices can also be programmed to change the data stored in them, as, for example, does the temperature sensing supply chain application mentioned above. Another advantage is that some are capable of being scanned by holding a reader some distance away and without precisely aiming the reader with respect to the MRL device. Some readers are capable or reading many MRL devices at once, for example RIFD readers.
Generally, MRL devices have been rather expensive, so few applications have been developed for the consumer market. An example of a system aimed at consumers, which is not greatly affected by cost, is a supermarket system for promoting products. In this system, a user picks up a shopping cart equipped with a portable radio terminal. As the user browses the aisles, he/she passes certain radio transmitting stations that have been set up to promote products shelved near those stations. As the user nears each such station, the portable radio terminal receives a message from the station and begins to play a promotional graphic and/or text message with attending sound. The graphic and text/audio messages are derived from some other source, such as a network server to which the terminal is wirelessly connected. The station transmits a unique identifier that prompts the terminal to deliver the graphic and text/audio message corresponding to the identifier. Similar applications are expected to appear in a greater range of contexts as the costs of high density MRL devices come down.
Research projects, such as at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, have explored using RFID tags to automate many activities. For example, one project resulted in the construction of a coffee machine that could read the identity of the owner of a coffee mug placed for receiving coffee. Using this information, the machine made the particular type of coffee favored by the mug""s owner and played music preferred by him/her. Another application proposed by the Media Lab is a refrigerator which reads the RFID tags of its contents, thereby maintaining an inventory. Another example was a microwave oven that gave instructions to the user and programmed itself for the type of food (given by an RFID tag) that was to be cooked. These systems are envisioned as being part of a household network with all manner of input and output devices, all of them intelligent and environment-responsive. The refrigerator knows what the oven is doing. Ovens, sinks, etc., all know their contents, status, and are enabled to act on objects both physically and digitally. The cupboards can advise a user as to whether s/he has all the ingredients you need to make a recipe. The kitchen observes the user making the recipe and gives advice synchronized with the user""s activity.
A white paper written by Joseph Kaye of MIT Media Lab proffered a number of concepts relevant to the environment of the current invention. One concept is for everything to be connected. For example, the RFID tag on a Tupperware container informs a reader in the sink that the container is being washed and is therefore empty. The food that had been stored in the container was removed and the container emptied. A particular food had previously been associated with the container""s RFID tag by the refrigerator which xe2x80x9casked,xe2x80x9d when the container was put into the refrigerator, for information on the container""s contents. The contents were thereafter part of the food inventory until the container was emptied. A smart kitchen envisioned by MIT Media Lab helps a user cook by guiding the user through a recipe, recommending substitutions, and telling the user where to find ingredients. Mr. Kaye also suggests identifying all products uniquely and providing each with an individual web page, available from which is every detail of that particular product""s history.
There is a need in the current state of the art for applications of code-reading devices which provide real benefits that consumers will want and to provide these benefits with a minimum of hassle so consumers will adopt the applications.
The invention is designed for an environment in which inexpensive machine-readable label devices (xe2x80x9cMRL devicesxe2x80x9d) appear in a great variety of contexts, as do barcodes presently. In the future, high data-density MRL devices may appear on purchasable products, ticket stubs, advertising media, shipping containers, delicatessen containers, etc. Readers of MRL devices may also proliferate. For example, they may be found in portable devices such as personal information managers (PIMs), cell phones, or cross-over devices. They may also be found incorporated in many common fixed appliances such as cash registers, publicly-accessible kiosks, domestic appliances, TV remote controls, etc.
Although a world full of high data-density MRL devices and readers is forecast by many technology-watchers, this will only happen if such devices provide real value to users. The present invention is concerned with several barriers to reaching this goal. One barrier is the demands any new technology makes on users. Users do not like to adopt new ways of doing things, unless there is a big payoff. Making technology that is easy to use as well as useful often means complex programming. Another barrier to widespread consumer acceptance is the difficulty of providing information and/or services that are truly useful to the user in a wide array of different contexts rather than simply a small number of narrow contexts.
One way to make MRL applications easy to use is to insure that they only present to the user those pieces of information and services that are relevant to the user. That way, the user is not required to navigate menus or enter additional information to get to something useful. To do this, preferably, the user""s immediate circumstances and preferences need to be taken into account. Most wireless applications are built with very little capacity for personalization, although this is an important design element for web portals that users return to again and again. The goal of the present invention is to provide a system that users will turn to repeatedly in many contexts, including new ones, because they have the experience that the system usually provides valuable information and/or services with a minimum of hassle. At the back end, another goal of the system is to provide this utility with a minimum of difficulty for programmers to provide the services.
The invention provides mechanisms by which a MRL reader may deliver highly relevant information or processes relating, in some way, to an article to which a MRL device is attached, taking into account other circumstances relating to the user such as the user""s personal preferences, the user""s environment, etc. The invention also provides mechanisms for sifting through the large quantity of potentially relevant information or number of resources and identifying those that are most likely to be the best choices for the user, thereby avoiding making demands on the user. Further, the invention provides mechanisms for insuring that the reader never produces useless responses even when confronted with requests that are impossible to predict, such as a user scanning a cereal box with a table-saw reader. Still further, the invention provides mechanisms by which a portable reader can still provide utility even when not connected to a database that can decode the MRL data.
Making intelligent use of many available sources of information about the user and his/her status and context of use at the time a request is made (compactly, the xe2x80x9cuser statexe2x80x9d) is an onerous programming task because of the many possible system responses. In addition, even without the issue of how to connect the many possible user states to many possible responses, it can be difficult on its own to provide the large numbers of responses that are connectable with the possible user states.
To this end, the invention leverages advances in search engine technology. New search engine technologies allow users to specify requests in natural language in order to access large unorganized corpuses of data (web pages). These technologies have the potential for being adapted to use in MRL systems. This makes it possible to create response data in a relatively unstructured format, relying on sophisticated search engine technology to determine how to connect requests to the most appropriate information or services in a resource database.
With a robust and flexible strategy in place for leveraging all available user state information, it is easier for new functionality to be added. For one thing, a service provider who creates a resource database does not need to script a response for each anticipated situation. This makes the task of adding new responses to a response database less onerous. For another thing, a single situation may admit of a variety of different responses. The usual way of handling that is to give the user a choice. By using the robust strategy suggested here, the system can filter the multiple of potentially applicable responses, avoiding the need for the user to make the choice in subsequent steps. The user receives the desired response faster and with less hassle. Readers affixed to a particular object, such as a home appliance, may transmit information identifying the particular object to the information resource. For example, the microwave oven may identify its make and model number to the information resource before receiving programming instructions. By providing the information resource with specific details about the context of the request for information (e.g., xe2x80x9cI am a microwave oven, located in a residence, and I am requesting information about this particular frozen dinner.xe2x80x9d), the information resource can make its response as relevant as possible (xe2x80x9cYou must want programming instructions.xe2x80x9d) Without the particulars of the context, it might take several exchanges between a user and the information resource before the relevant information was delivered. For example, the user could be shopping and simply want to know something about the product in anticipation of purchasing it. Without the context, the situation is much like visiting a worldwide web (WWW) site today, where it is necessary to navigate a menu tree before the desired information can be found.
Given that additional information supplied to the information resource can increase the relevance of responses, readers may be programmed to deliver information regarding the requesting user. For example, a personal reader may store a user profile or access a user profile stored on a network (or Internet). The benefit of the latter is that it further allows the responding information provider to personalize its response, increasing the odds the user will act on the information supplied. This personalization data can be transmitted from the reader or derived by the information provider from another server storing such data according to a unique identifier for the personalization data.
Other sources of information that may be used to increase the relevancy of responses include stored historical use patterns/preferences, general data such as news, weather, time of day, season of the year, and information from other resources such as an inventory stored on a local network server. Here is an example of how such data could be used. An individual scans a MRL device affixed to a frozen dinner with a microwave oven reader. The local time of day is 8:00 AM, so it is less likely the user is planning to cook the frozen dinner at this time. Historical use patterns indicate that the user has never programmed the microwave oven to cook frozen dinners in the morning. The household inventory, stored on a server to which the microwave oven reader is connected through a network, indicates current level of frozen dinners is one unit. It is currently winter, and historical use patterns indicate that frozen dinners are cooked frequently during the winter months. The microwave oven reader transmits relevant information to an information resource, in this case an Internet server indicated in the MRL device, and receives a menu with several options, responses to each of the options being included in the transmission. The options include an identification of a local store at which frozen dinners are on sale, similar products the user may want to try, and instructions on how to heat a large number of frozen dinners for a dinner party. If it had been dinnertime, the information resource might have returned simply cooking instructions.
Another issue that relates to the potential for widespread acceptance of MRL devices is that people are less likely to adopt the habit of using new technology, especially when its use requires adaptation, when the technology is usable in only certain circumstances. So, for example, if only some products purchasable at a supermarket were fitted with MRL devices and others not, consumers would require two different ways of performing the tasks that the MRL devices otherwise automate: one for articles fitted with MRL devices and one for articles not so fitted. Thus, for example, MRL devices have the potential to automate the tracking of food inventory, the making of shopping lists, and the determination of the sufficiency of on-hand goods for making a recipe. If, however, only part of a shopping list can be made, or only half the requirements for a recipe automatically determined, the utility of such automation is greatly diminished. Thus, according to certain features of the invention, MRL devices may be provided for articles that are not prepackaged, such as consumables like delicatessen goods, produce, meat, etc.
While it has been proposed that MRL devices and bar-codes be used to connect users to web sites for purchase of goods, this degree of automation merely avoids the need for the user to enter a web address. This idea is basically the same as the Cue Cat(copyright) system. Since machine-readable symbols like MRL devices can bring users to a web site quickly, they have the potential to facilitate impulse-purchasing. There is a much greater likelihood of a sale when a user is provided an opportunity to buy a movie soundtrack just as the user leaves the movie with the music still fresh in his/her mind. This could be done by placing an Internet terminal in a self-service kiosk at the theater. The smaller the number of steps involved, the more likely a sale will be completed. In an embodiment of the invention, a MRL device is attached to a ticket stub. The device may contain an address at which the movie soundtrack can be purchased. Moreover, the device contains sufficient data density to correlate or store account, authorization, shipping, and authentication information to allow the purchase to be completed without any prompting from the user aside from the selection and confirmation of an item to be purchased. If a theatergoer purchases tickets using a credit card, the account can be linked temporarily to data on the MRL device on the ticket stub. This data can further link an order process to preference information contained in user-profile database and the purchase used to augment that database. To protect the user""s account, the connection between the user""s credit account and the ticket data may be given a predefined expiration period, say 2 hours after the movie or other event is over. As an inducement for the user to purchase at the theater, the user can be given a discount incentive such as lower price on his/her next ticket purchase, discounted price for the goods ordered, or a free gift. Precisely the same functionality can be provided through a portable terminal rather than a kiosk terminal or a home computer connected to the network; or even a portable computer or terminal.
The invention will be described in connection with certain preferred embodiments, with reference to the following illustrative figures so that it may be more fully understood. With reference to the figures, it is stressed that the particulars shown are by way of example and for purposes of illustrative discussion of the preferred embodiments of the present invention only, and are presented in the cause of providing what is believed to be the most useful and readily understood description of the principles and conceptual aspects of the invention. In this regard, no attempt is made to show structural details of the invention in more detail than is necessary for a fundamental understanding of the invention, the description taken with the drawings making apparent to those skilled in the art how the several forms of the invention may be embodied in practice.